The invention relates to a food processing system, including a system for cooking and/or smoking and/or chilling strings of hot dogs or sausages.
In a hot dog processing system, a plurality of strings of hot dogs are manually hung from a meat stick by an operator, and then loaded by the operator onto a conveyor system which transports the hot dogs through one or more designated processing chambers for cooking, smoking, chilling or the like. The meat stick may be transferred from one conveyor to another for passage from one part of a system to another, for example for transfer from a loading station to one or more processing stations.
The present invention provides a simplified loading system for loading the food stick, with the food product suspended therefrom, onto the conveyor at the loading station. .The loading operation is simple and quick, and allows a plurality of operators to work at the loading station and load food sticks onto the conveyor, without congestion. This increases productivity. The ease of loading also streamlines an otherwise labor intensive operation, reducing cost.
In another aspect of the invention, the food stick is not captive to the conveyor, and can be easily removed in the event any of the packaging or processing lines break down. The easy removal enables the food product to be readily detached from the conveyor for temporary storage in a cooler, without spoilage, until the system is back up and running.
In another aspect of the invention, the easy loading system is further designed to enable and cooperate with a simple reliable transfer system for transferring the food stick, with the product suspended therefrom, from the loading station conveyor to another conveyor for transport to a processing station.
In another aspect of the invention, an automatic return guide is provided along the return run of the loading system conveyor such that after the food stick is transferred from the loading station conveyor to the downstream processing conveyor, the suspension system on the loading station conveyor is automatically returned to a loading condition for the operator to load a new food stick thereon.